


Gone, But Not Forgotten

by hato



Series: Untitled Series [10]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-08
Updated: 2012-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-07 08:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/428793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hato/pseuds/hato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John hasn’t had to actually break the news of Sherlock’s media-sensationalized death to anyone. Until now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone, But Not Forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> Occurs several months after S2Ep3. I work with young children (if you haven’t figured it out by now, lol) and these kinds of discussions actually come up fairly often.
> 
> Disclaimer: The characters belong to Arthur Conan Doyle. This particular version belongs to Stephen Moffat, Mark Gatiss, and BBC.

John hears them downstairs. Quiet voices, murmurs. Muffled footsteps. Click of a door.  
  
He ignores them. Continues to sit in his chair, slumped, hands curved loosely over the arms. Staring blankly over the top of the opposite chair (not  _at_ the chair, no, not until the early morning hours after a night of little sleep, then he sits and stares at the crumpled leather cushions and remembers, remembers, remembers... )  out the window.  Watching the light and shadows shift as the sun passes over. Dull hum of his own pulse in his ears, steady white noise of street traffic.  Suffocating himself in the mundane sounds of continuing life.  
  
The door creaks open and John hears it but can’t quite take his attention away from the subtle darkening of clouds momentarily obscuring the sun. Can’t break his focus on nothing. Nothing. Grey and blank and he doesn’t want to think about-  
  
“ Juhn?” A small figure materializes in front of him and John takes her in at a glance.  Big blue ribbon in light red hair. A black Jolly Roger t-shirt topping baggy little jeans, small pink trainers peeking out.  Solemn blue gaze.  
  
“ Hullo, Sophie.” John forces his mouth to smile, absently notes the improvement in her pronunciation ( 2nd birthday a month after losing Sherlock and John had given Mrs. Hudson  a &pound 20 note as a gift contribution because he just couldn’t attend). Remembers the voices a while ago, downstairs. “ Your mum visiting with Mrs. Hudson?”  He looks back out the window.  
  
Sophie nods in his periphery.  
  
“ Did you tell your mum you were popping up here?”  
  
Sophie shakes her head.  
  
John makes a noncommittal sound. Distracted by the slight flutter of the curtain in the draft.  
  
But he feels the weight of her gaze on him. The familiar sharp observation sweeping across his form, then around the flat.  Knows she is taking in every little detail, filtering it through her rapidly developing little brain, and only keeping the pieces of information she deems relevant. Like any child. Like-  
  
She shuffles at his side. Another visual sweep of the sitting room, the kitchen.  “ Sahlock hum?” Her pronunciation is definitely improving.  
  
He can’t help it, flinches at her small voice, the name. John does his best to smother the bitterness in his expression. “ No. Sherlock’s not home, Sophie.”   His voice isn’t quite even. A bit unsteady. “ He’s not here.” Studies the slip of a view exposed in the crack of the drawn curtains.  Vaguely wonders if Mrs. Bingley told Sophie about Sherlock and the child simply doesn’t understand.  
  
Sophie stands quietly for a moment. Then moves away and comes back just as quickly. Something clasped tightly in her little hand. “ Hullo, Sahlock? Hullo?”  
  
Or if no one has said anything to her at all.  
  
John forces his attention onto the child. She’s holding his mobile phone to her ear. Smiling brightly, eyes questioning.  “ Sahlock, hullo?”  Wanting John to ring up Sherlock to come play with her. Believing it in that perfectly sincere, open, guileless way of all children.  
  
And something small breaks inside John. A wide crack in his composure.  A tiny sob caught in his throat before it can leave his mouth.  A hitch in his breath and an immediate burn behind his eyes that he blinks into submission.  
  
He wants to believe it, as well. Wants to believe that something as simple as a phone call will bring Sherlock back home.  
  
John sucks in a slow, deep breath. Grips the chair arms with all his strength for a split second. Then lets go. “ C’mere, sweetheart.”  He holds out his arms, welcoming. Consciously gentling his expression, trying to get a smile to his lips. He’s not sure how well it’s working.  
  
Sophie clambers into John’s lap, mobile beeping indignantly at her clumsy grip. She settles on his ‘good’ thigh, leaning against his chest.  A warm, comforting weight he instantly loops his arms around. Little head resting against his shoulder. She looks up into his face, her own expression still open, still confused, still hopeful. Sophie pushes the mobile to John’s ear. “ Hullo.”  
  
John swipes his fingers across his eyes. Shakes his head. “ I can’t call Sherlock. I’m sorry, sweetheart. He’s-”  John knows exactly what Sherlock would say to her. Tell her about death and boxes and fire and earth. Remembers what his own mum told him about his grandfather’s death when he was young. About going to sleep and heaven and angels. Knows what Sherlock would have to say about all that.    
  
Sophie lowers the mobile, still looking to John for answers.  
  
“ He... died. This summer.” John keeps eye contact, swallows the lump in his throat at the words.  Sophie stares back at him, the familiar look of concentration on her face, the child trying very hard to comprehend the concept. John phrases it differently. “  He won’t... be back in the flat anymore. He’s gone.”  
  
John can see the wheels turning behind the clear blue eyes.  Sophie fingers the keyboard screen of the mobile. “ No mo Sahlock?”  Utterly puzzled, as though John has told her that tea and biscuits no longer exist. “ Sahlock guhn?”  
  
“ Yes, Sophie.” John hugs her a bit tighter. “ He’s gone.”  It hurts to say it out loud. Grits his teeth and struggles to breathe properly for a moment. Pushes at the darkness threatening to overtake him. Pushes the tired smile back to his face. “ But, he’s still in here.” John lightly taps the red head, then his own greying temple. “ We still remember, don’t we? We still l-love him. “ He’s never said that out loud before, barely even dared to think it in his own muddled head. Saying it now, much too late, is a bit anti-climatic. And pathetic.  
  
Sophie’s intense expression is broken by a grin, a pert nod of her head. “ ‘Membuh. Loov Sahlock. ”  She turns the mobile over in her hands, several times.  
  
John watches her quietly for a few moments, letting his emotions settle back into a controllable swirl just beneath the faulty calm.  And an idea slowly materializes. “ Here, sweetheart, let me see it.”  The mobile is handed over without protest. John unlocks the screen and flicks through his contacts because it’s still there and he wasn’t able to delete it and he honestly doesn’t think he will ever be able to.  “ Here you are.”  He turns the screen toward Sophie.  
  
Sherlock’s image is on the display. John had taken it in the first week of moving into 221b, simply wanting a picture for the contact ID.  A close-up of his friend reclining on the sofa, head on the pillow, steepled fingers resting against his lips. Pale eyes blank as Sherlock turns his focus inwards.  
  
It is burned into his memory. Each and every line and shadow.  
  
Sophie continues to smile and point, index finger smudging across the screen. “ Da Gate Sahlock Humz!”  She giggles and John chuckles. Sophie pushes the phone back toward him, poking at the line of digits. “ Juhn, tist. Tist Sahlock!”  
  
It takes him a moment to interpret and the tightness in his chest grows. Just a bit. But, really, what harm is there?   John sighs and selects the  _New Text_ option. He doesn’t think Mycroft would have allowed the number to be given to anyone else, so there shouldn’t be much chance of the message going astray.  And the phone itself is most likely locked up in some random Holmes’ residence with a dead battery.  No harm in humoring the girl.  “ Alright, Sophie. Just this once, yeah?”  
  
“ Yup, yup, yup! Hullo, Sahlock!”    
  
“ Not so loud, sweetheart. I need all the hearing I’ve got left.” John’s reprimand has no sting whatsoever, his tone distracted as he stares at the cursor in the empty box.  
  
Hesitates. Hovering. Chewing on the inside of his cheek as he finally begins to type.  
  
 _Miss you. I’m sorry. I love you. Sophie says hullo.- ** JW**_  
  
A simple message. A silly waste of a text. John hits _ Send_ and ignores the conflicting emotions swelling in his chest. Relief. Guilt. Hope. An edge of hysterical hopelessness.  Over a stupid text that is going- quite literally- nowhere.  
  
John locks the mobile without looking at the image. Reaches out and places it on the small side table. Knocks a stack of mail over it. Out of sight, out of mind.  He hugs Sophie close, for a brief moment and kisses the top of her head. “ Would you like to read a book?”  John takes in a ragged breath the second she scrambles from his lap in search of a book. Holds it. Exhales slowly and rubs his eyes until they’re bone dry.  
  
Sophie needs him to not fall apart right now.  
  
And John is grateful for the distraction.  
  
\-----------------  
  
In a rural corner of Eastern Europe, in the stone ruins of an abandoned church, a mobile vibrates in a dark coat pocket...  
  
 **end**

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to everyone who reads, kudos' and comments!!!


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